The invention relates to a passenger seat for people movers such as buses, boats and airplanes, in which such seats are mounted in rows behind one another.
These seats are designed not only for good comfort of the passengers but they are also designed for their safety, that is, they should be constructed in such a manner that the negative consequences of an accident are as much as possible eliminated. The passenger seats therefore need to be not only rugged and safely secured but they also need to retain bodies striking them during an accident in such a manner that injuries are essentially avoided. In view of this requirement the seats which are quite rigid are generally provided with large-surface cover sheets on the back of their backrests which sheets are intended to absorb the forces of impact by any bodies hitting them without injuries to the bodies. Tests however have revealed that these large-surface cover sheets have the disadvantage that a passenger who, during an accident, is thrown forward onto the cover sheet of the seat in front of his, will hit the cover sheet first with his knees and his upper body is then pushed upwardly and finally over the backrest of the seat ahead. Such forward and upward movement was found to lead not only to substantial knee injuries but also to upper body injuries and--with unfortunate settings of the headrests--also to facial injuries and accident traumas. All these injuries could be avoided if the bodies would only move straight forward during accidents such that the large area cover of the seat back ahead could appropriately absorb the deceleration forces of a body impacting thereon.
It is therefore the principal object of the present invention to provide a passenger seat arrangement with which the chances that, during an accident when a passenger is catapulted forward onto the backrest of the seat ahead, his or her chances of surviving without injuries are substantially improved.